


Herding Hyperactive Cats Would Be Easier

by Medie



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2842850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You learn a few things in this job. You learn what it feels like to kill a man. You learn what it looks like to watch the light go out of his eyes. You learn how to process pain and trauma and a whole lot of goddamn fucked up shit that no human being should ever know.</p><p>With the Losers, you learn that absolutely none of that will ever be as terrifying as hearing Jake Jensen say, "Hey guys, do you wanna try this game?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Herding Hyperactive Cats Would Be Easier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katemonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katemonkey/gifts).



> My thanks to ********* for the brainstorming and the beta!

The thing of it is, there's a lot of downtime in the spec ops business. Like, way more than you'd think. A completely ungodly amount of our time is spent sitting on our asses doing fuck all. 

Believe me, when you're dealing with a team of highly-trained, somewhat amoral individuals? 

That can go very bad, very fast, and if that team happens to be the Losers?

 _Yeah_.

In general, it's pretty much a good idea to keep them as occupied as you can before somebody pisses Roque off or Jensen hacks the White House and sends gay porn and pizza to congress again. 

Yeah, again.

Of course, occupying them doesn't always help much either. 

*  
 _Monopoly_  
*

Actually, Monopoly wasn't all that bad at first. It almost worked for a while. If we could find a full board (Jensen had to have that goddamn little tin dog or there was hell to pay), then the guys were good for a few hours or so. I could even leave them alone and nobody was bleeding when I got back.

Okay, mostly nobody was bleeding when I got back.

And then it happened.

"The fuck is that?" 

So, pretty much anytime Roque yells, it's pretty much an impending shitstorm for everybody in a five block radius.

When Roque yells like he did that day? The whole country might want to consider a tactical relocation. Pretty sure my balls did. 

Judging by the thump that Jensen made when he tipped forward on his chair to sit up straight, I wasn't the only one. "Uh, a little research? Found on the internet and thought I'd give it a try. Pretty sweet, actually." 

"Research? For _Monopoly_?" I heard the sound of pages turning, Roque looking through said research. I refused to look at that because I really didn't want to know just how much planning Jensen had put into it. Not that I couldn't guess. Kid was nothing if not compulsive about that shit. "We've planned ops with less intel than this." 

"That's because Cougar was on our side." Jensen announce. "This is Monopoly, Roque, and in Monopoly it's every Loser for themselves." When I glanced over at them, Cougar was smirking at them from behind an embarrassingly big pile of Monopoly money.

Which, yeah, I had to admit, might have just paid Jensen's point. 

*  
 _Snakes and Ladders_  
*

Don't rightly know how we came by that one. I think Pooch found it in the trunk of a car we were using at the time. He almost threw the damn thing out, but then Jensen saw it and you can pretty much guess where things went from there. 

Roque and I go out on a run, scouting out a bridge for a little percussive maintenance, and come back to Pooch flipping the board off the table with a, "You have to be fucking kidding me with this fucking game!"

"Y'ok, bro?" 

Never seen Pooch turn on Roque like that before, but I damn well never want to see it again either.

Same goes for that goddamn game.

Yeah, Snakes and Ladders? Not a good idea. 

*  
 _The Sims_  
*

Believe it or not, that one was a good idea. Disturbing, really, but still a damn good idea. Jensen had the first one on his laptop for a few years, used to come up with some pretty perverted hacks for that thing, but it wasn't until the second one that it took on with everybody.

Seen a lot of weird shit in this job, but walking in on Cougar quietly snickering as he burns some poor bastard to death making toast?

Yeah, that one topped it.

At least, until Roque got another guy pregnant with an alien's baby and named it Jensen.

Which, okay, actually a pretty good explanation as to where we got that guy. Possibly also his sister, though she's better at normal. 

Mostly. Mostly better at normal, but that is a subject for another time. 

Either way, that went about as well as can be expected and led to, uh, _consequences_. 

Should've known something was up when we caught Jensen hacking in his underwear. Nothing ever goes well when he does that.

For the record? Roque did not take kindly to Sim!Roque being abducted and inseminated by aliens.

Baby was cute as all hell though. 

*  
 _Jenga_  
*

Then there was that time we had to hole up in a toy store over the Christmas holidays. Forget what country we were in for that one, whole op had been nothing but fucked-to-hell from go and we'd been through half a dozen or more countries by that point, but it was fucking freezing and the toy store wasn't.

Also? 

Pretty much the best Jensen's ever been. Roque didn't threaten to kill him even once.

Me, however? I gave serious thought to pitching him out the window. Or, at least, shooting him a few dozen times. Because waking up to him crowing, "Aw, man, seriously? That is fucking _awesome_. How the hell do you do that?"

Yeah, I can think of better wake up calls than Jensen. 

"Clay, you have got to see this, I have no idea how he's doing it!"

Which, okay, fair, he had a point about. When I walked in there, half a dozen Jenga boxes were open and scattered around the floor. The contents of those boxes?

Yeah, Cougar was working on them with the kind of focus that usually ended in somebody's head getting ventilated. 

Which, actually, was pretty damn cool. 

At least it was until I sneezed.

Still feel bad about that one.

*

You learn a few things in this job. You learn what it feels like to kill a man. You learn what it looks like to watch the light go out of his eyes. You learn how to process pain and trauma and a whole lot of goddamn fucked up shit that no human being should ever know.

With the Losers, you learn that absolutely none of that will ever be as terrifying as hearing Jake Jensen say, "Hey guys, do you wanna try this game?"

Which is precisely why a certain game has ever been played by any member of my team and at no point did anyone break anyone else's leg over it.

Absolutely not, do you hear me, Jensen? We do not break limbs because of a goddamn kid's game.

Ever.

Pooch was, and is, _sorry._.

Fucking Candyland.


End file.
